Monday, March 28, 2011

It's a quiet, cloudy, cold day in Athens today. Which stinks. As Georgia offensive lineman Kolton Houston tweeted today: "Spring, we are to old to be playing hide n seek. So you can come out of hiding any time you want."

Well said.

A few quick hits as I get over a bout with the flu, and wait for Georgia to resume spring practice on Tuesday:

- As you probably saw, the Georgia women's basketball team's season ended on Sunday with a 79-38 loss to Texas A&M in the Sweet 16 of the NCAA tournament. That score is correct, by the way.

Not a great way for Andy Landers' team to wrap up, but hey, it's still the Sweet 16.

- In the past 24 hours, a couple men's basketball hires have been made that have a direct impact on Georgia. Tennessee has tapped Cuonzo Martin, formerly of Missouri State, and Georgia Tech has hired Brian Gregory away from Dayton.

They're similar hires in the sense that both Martin and Dayton coached teams that didn't make this year's NCAAs, but are considered solid mid-major programs. Martin, who was the second banana on the Glenn Robinson-led Purdue teams of the early 1990s, became a hot name this year. Gregory's name has been thrown around for a few openings the past few years.

My impression is that neither hire is a home run, nor is either a swing-and-a-miss. Gregory is a solid coach with a good reputation. Martin strikes me as having more coaching upside - if there is such a thing - who should be able to keep Tennessee as a destination for top recruits. The question is whether he'll be able to coach it up.

But it's a good hire for the Vols when you take into account the program's situation, and the uncertainty over the pending NCAA penalties.

As for Georgia Tech, the fact that it had to "settle" for Gregory and couldn't nab a bigger name coach may speak for the program's slip, or finances. (The Paul Hewitt buyout cost a ton.) But Georgia Tech is probably just seeking to get back to relevance. We'll see. You could certainly argue that Georgia has surpassed its in-state rival in basketball, but that's only within the context of this season. Mark Fox does appear to have the program on the right track, however.

- Finally, a personal note: My fantasy baseball draft is tonight, and I still don't have a good team name. So if anybody has any suggestions, fire away. Someone suggested my fantasy football name last year - the Favre Dollar Footlongs - for which I was eternally grateful. So maybe we can strike gold twice.

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About the Author

Seth Emerson has been covering the SEC and Georgia (on and off) since 2002. He worked at the Albany Herald from 2002-05, then spent five years at The State in Columbia, S.C., covering South Carolina. He returned to Athens in August of 2010, only to find that David Pollack and David Greene were no longer playing for the Bulldogs. Adjustments were made.

Emerson is originally from Silver Spring, Md., and graduated from Maryland in 1998 with a degree in journalism and a minor in getting lost on the way to practically everywhere. Then he spent four years at The Washington Post, covering small colleges, a couple NCAA basketball tournaments, and on one glorious day, was yelled at by Tony Kornheiser. It was probably at The Post that he also learned to write in the third person.

These days he lives in Athens with his beloved and somewhat wimpy dog, Archie. Together they fight crime at night in northeast Georgia, except on nights there is no crime, in which case they sit at home, sip on white wine and watch reruns of "Mad Men."